THE SPORT OF ROWING “And then somewhere in the first 500, I would experience this wonderful flood of relief as I perceived that once again Ted had been wrong, and we were going to romp to victory. “Not that we pulled any less hard – we had all been brought up by coaches who preached that regardless of the margin, you rowed your [genetic heritage] off nonetheless. Rowing just to win was un- American or un-manly. “But I digress. The amazing thing was that each week Ted could manage to convince us that last week didn’t mean anything – now we were in for a real fight. “At the Sprints, it was some tale about how incredibly strong Cornell was. I don’t remember where they finished, but it was the same as ever for us at the finish. “And at Henley, of course, you have little idea about anyone. During the time before the racing, we raced anyone and everyone off the starting line, but still were clueless. “Because of the race format, Ted talked to us about getting out a length or so and letting off a bit so we could save ourselves for later races. “Heresy! In the first race, we get out to a length and our coxswain calls it down, and I start shouting, ‘No, NO, Not Yet!’ and Ted is bicycling along the tow path shouting ‘Confidence, Tiff! Confidence, Tiff!’ “Hilarious! We won all the races easily. I mean, the margins weren’t all ‘Easily,’ as they say at Henley, but we were rowing easily. It felt so good to be able to finally open it up a bit in the final.”4786 Al Shealy That undefeated Freshman Crew was stroked by Al Shealy, a man Harry Parker 4786 Wood, personal correspondence, 2005 has credited with single-handedly changing the Harvard Style. Parker: “In the ‘60s we really rowed hard, but that changed when Shealy came along. We didn’t do that with the Shealy crews. “In the ‘70s, it was still a quick catch, but we moved away from the really hard, powerful catches with the high blades to being more controlled at the front end, not a major change in the rhythm, but a little bit of change. “I mean we still worked hard at the catch. Everybody knows that I work hard at the catches, to make sure that they are vertical and that they lock on right away, but we became a little less violent at the catch.”4787 Shealy: “At Harvard, I recall concentration on bladework and the catch. The catch was sharp and defined but not ‘explosive,’ i.e., no hang, drop it right in, and get the work on. “Pounding the catch probably has its benefits, but it seems a bit counterintuitive to me. Logic says that the catch is the point at which the boat is going its slowest, so applying maximum effort with a hyperkinetic pulse is the equivalent of trying to lift dead weight. A crisp catch with a forceful draw, followed by a strong pullthrough seems to make a better case for efficiency, but I ain’t no scientist. “The emphasis at Harvard was on the strongest locus in the body, the juncture of the back and legs, where the leverage was generated. Lifting the back on the drive amplified this leverage. The arms are always the weakest link, and they were reserved for the final pullthrough, complimenting the dominant energy created at the mid-point of the stroke.”4788 This represented another significant step in the maturity of Harry Parker and the 4787 Parker, personal conversation, 2004 4788 Shealy, personal conversation, 2005 1330
